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Which was when Corene finally put it together. “Of course! Filomara’s husband was Harlo’s—uncle?”

“That’s right,” Harlo said.

“So Steff is your second cousin, or something like that.”

“I know some people make fun of him for being a farmer’s son, but that’s why my father’s relatives liked him so much,” Liramelli said.

“He’s unpretentious,” said Mariana. “That’s the word I was looking for.”

“He is that,” Corene agreed. “It’s one of the reason he’s so likable—but might be one of the reasons Filomara decides not to name him her heir.”

“We’re not talking about that tonight, remember?” Liramelli demanded.

“Do you think he’ll stay?” Harlo asked. “If Filomara doesn’t choose him?”

“I don’t know,” Corene said. “It might be hard to go back to being an ordinary man in Welce after being a prince in Malinqua.”

“I don’t think he’d actually be ordinary,” Harlo said. “My uncle—Filomara’s husband—had assets that have been kept in trust since his death but will now devolve on Steffanolo, since he has been declared legitimately to be Subriella’s son. He will be a man of some wealth, and I imagine he could be an ambassador of sorts between our nations, if nothing else.” Harlo sipped from his glass. “Relations have generally been good between our countries, but things could always be better,” he went on. “In the area of commerce, for instance. I imagine there are a lot of possibilities there.”

Corene sat up straighter in her chair. This, then, was the real reason she’d been invited to the meal. “Well, as my father says, there are three types of goods that countries exchange,” she said. “Living things, mechanical things, and knowledge. You and Steff have already talked about livestock and crops, but mechanical things might be where the money is. Surely Filomara has told you about our smoker cars and flying machines?”

“
Flying
machines?” Mariana repeated. “Oh, just the words sound dangerous!”

“They’re pretty scary,” Corene admitted. “Steff’s brother is a pilot. We watched him fly once, and I was sure he was going to crash and die.”

“I understand they’re still experimental,” Harlo said. “But those smoker cars sounded intriguing.”

“I have no idea what ‘smoker cars’ are,” Liramelli said.

“Vehicles that run on compressed gasses,” Corene explained. “So you don’t need horses. They were invented by the elay prime, so they’re also known as elaymotives.”

“I think the Malinquese people would definitely embrace elaymotives,” Harlo said. “What do you think the Welchin folk would like in return?”

“I met someone the other day—Renalto?” When Harlo nodded, Corene went on. “He talked about biological science and some of the advances you’ve made in medicine. I’m sure there are researchers in Chialto who would love a chance to learn from him.”

“If some of your scientific leaders wanted to come here to study, I’m confident that could be arranged.”

They talked for another twenty minutes about the items their own countries might be willing to export, might be looking to import, and which individuals at which end might make those exchanges happen. Corene would have said she was the last person in Welce who could talk knowledgably about trade, so she was somewhat surprised that she was able to answer most of Harlo’s questions, at least in general terms. Maybe she had absorbed more than she realized during those afternoons spent in Darien’s study. Maybe she was smarter about finance and economics than she, or anyone else, had ever realized. She fingered the blessing rings hanging from her silver necklace, separating them out by feel until she located the one she wanted.
Clarity.
Maybe it meant something different than she had thought all along.

EIGHT

I
n a conspiratorial moment, Corene and Liramelli had decided they would slip off to the Great Market without any of their usual companions by claiming they were going to tour the two great towers of the city. Melissande had already made the obligatory visit to the landmarks, and Filomara’s nephews had seen them so often they couldn’t be expected to work up any interest in the jaunt. Once they were free of the palace, the two of them could head to the market alone and shop. Corene had even mentioned this clever plan in a note she’d sent to Leah the day after her dinner with the prefect’s family.

So at breakfast a few days later, they proposed an outing to the towers and had to hide their glee when Melissande actually yawned. But Steff expressed interest in going, which made Melissande suddenly want to join them. Jiramondi excused himself, but Garameno and Greggorio both surprisingly attached themselves to the expedition. Most astonishing of all, Alette looked up from her almost-empty plate and said, “May I come, too?”

“How lovely it would be to have you with us!” Melissande exclaimed. “Please do.”

So, once again, they required two carriages and
platoons
of soldiers to make the slow journey through crowded streets to a destination
Corene wasn’t even sure she wanted to visit. Once again, she’d ended up in Garameno’s carriage, and this time he filled her in on the history of the towers: when they had been built, and when the gas lines had been added so neither one had to be tended by human workers but would burn eternally on inexhaustible fuel.

“So the white light is also flame?” Corene asked. “It doesn’t look like any fire I’ve ever seen.”

“It is not flame so much as heat,” he replied. “The top of the dome is made of a dense crystal that is unimpressive until the temperature reaches a certain point. Then it begins to glow in the way that you’ve seen. A few very wealthy individuals have much smaller lighting systems in their houses built along similar principles.”

“It seems like a spooky sort of illumination,” Corene commented. “I’m not sure I’d want to live by it.”

“I tend to agree.”

They headed first to the southern tower with its magnificent crown of fire. Up close, it was even more impressive, built of solid chunks of cinnamon granite, each one bigger than a coffin. A large arched doorway showed a glimpse of a stone floor and a spare stairwell curving upward into darkness. The base was at least the size of Corene’s suite of rooms, though the spire seemed to taper as it climbed toward the sky. Or perhaps that was just the extreme perspective; Corene was squinting upward and couldn’t be sure.

Melissande leaned as far back as she could, craning her neck to see. “Yes, flame, just as there is always flame, night and day,” she decreed. “Now we have seen it, let us move on.”

But Steff had hopped nimbly from the second carriage, then thoughtfully turned to help both Alette and Liramelli alight. “We can climb to the top, can’t we?” he said. “I want to do that.”

Melissande looked at him in horror. “No, you do not! Who would want to do that?”

He grinned. “Corene, I bet.”

She was already out of her seat and accepting Foley’s hand to swing down to the cobblestones. He looked amused; he knew this wasn’t how she’d really planned to spend the day. “You’re right,” Corene said. “I’m here, I’m going up.”

Liramelli looked indecisive. “I’ve been so many times. I think, today—”

“Today you will wait with me and Garameno and be very entertaining,” Melissande said firmly. “Come. Sit with us.”

“I’m climbing,” Greggorio said. He glanced at Steff. “I’ll race you up.”

Steff grinned. “You’re on.”

Alette spoke up in her soft, heavily accented voice. “I would like to go to the very top of the tower, please. But I will not run.”

“No, I’m not running, either,” Corene said. “Those two are idiots.”

“Well, come on, then,” Steff said, and the four of them stepped through the archway.

They paused a moment to let their eyes adjust. The stairway, which hugged the wall as it spiraled upward, appeared to be built predominantly of wood reinforced in various spots by cast metal. It was wide enough for four people to walk abreast if none of them was afraid of being pushed off the interior edge, where there was no banister. In counterpoint to the stairway, on the opposite wall, a single thin tube of gaslight wound up the spire, providing enough light to see by but not enough to chase away all the shadows. Way, way up, at the very apex of the tower, a coruscating red announced the presence of fire.

“Hold up at the bottom of the stairs. Have one of the women give the signal to go,” Greggorio commanded, and he and Steff lined themselves up, each with one foot on the lowest step.

Corene glanced at Alette, who didn’t seem to have heard the directive. So she said, “Go!” and then laughed to see the two men leaping up the stairs as fast as their legs would carry them.

“I hope they don’t fall and break their necks,” she commented. “Still want to make the climb?”

“Yes,” Alette replied, and side by side they stepped onto the first riser and began the ascent. They could hear the laughter and ringing footfalls of the men as they charged upward; Corene even fancied she could feel the stairway shake from the vigor of their passage.

She had taken the outside edge just to prove she wasn’t afraid to fall, but she started to regret it before they were halfway up. The wood and metal framework felt less and less substantial, and through its slats Corene could see the floor so far away beneath her feet. It was akin to
being suspended unsupported in midair, and vertigo swirled through her head.

“You go on ahead, I’ll fall a step behind,” Corene said, suiting action to words. The world stabilized a bit once she could put her hand against the wall. The key was to not look down, she decided. She focused on the colorful print of Alette’s robe and the feel of the granite against her fingertips. “Aren’t you dizzy?” she couldn’t help asking.

“No.”

“I’m not usually afraid of heights, but I feel like I could lose my footing at any minute,” she went on. She could tell she was babbling, and probably annoying Alette, but she couldn’t stop. “Though I guess I’m a
little
afraid of heights. I mean, I wouldn’t go up in the flying machines we have in Welce. Well, that only makes sense. They’re not safe—people crash and die all the time. But I’ve never worried about
stairs
before.”

Alette didn’t bother answering, just kept moving surely and smoothly up the tower. Corene wondered what kind of shoes the other girl was wearing. The soles of her own pretty slippers felt decidedly slick; maybe Alette was so steady on her feet because her shoes provided a better grip. Or maybe Alette had grown up on a mountaintop and spent her days running up and down narrow pathways like a wild creature. Corene knew nothing about Dhonsho. She should study it.
I will, as soon as we get safely back,
she told herself.
If I haven’t gone completely mad from fear before we make it to the top.

They were almost there—she could tell by the thick, smoky heat and the heavy, fluttering sound of a massive flame. The color of the air around them had darkened to a translucent ochre that they passed through like fish swimming through tinted water. For the final few steps, the heat was so oppressive that Corene found it hard to breathe, and the metal patches of the stairwell felt hot beneath her feet. Then they burst through a rectangular trapdoor to the roof and found the world on fire.

Truly, that was how Corene felt when she first laid eyes on the raging blaze that crowned the granite tower. Behind the jagged glass screens of crimson and saffron and orange, the flames leapt up, taller than a man, whipping wildly in an invisible wind. Over the loud whuffling of
the fire Corene could hear the faint hiss of the gas jets paying out their fuel. It was the most spectacularly beautiful sight she had ever seen.

“About time you got here!” Steff called out. Corene dragged her eyes from the mesmerizing rise and fall of conflagration to inspect her destination. The roof of the tower didn’t feel a whole lot safer than the stairwell. There was a wooden lip, wide enough for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder, that encircled the leaping flames. Above it was a metal fence, barely waist-high, consisting of only two flat rails and occasional vertical supports. Past this flimsy barrier the city spread out in all directions below them, looking like nothing so much as a painting of a city in a child’s picture book. The heat was so intense that Corene moved as close to the railing as she could without scalding herself on its broiling edges.

“Who won?” she called back.

Greggorio pushed past Steff, looking pleased with himself. “I did. By two steps.”

“You went up on the inside edge,” Steff argued. “You had an advantage.”

“We’ll race up the white tower, too,” Greggorio retorted. “I’ll take the outside, and then we’ll see who’s fastest.”

Corene moved carefully past them so she could locate the one landmark she was sure to recognize: the palace. As the largest building in Palminera, it wasn’t hard to find. And from this vantage point, she could also get a better appreciation of the walled city that enclosed it, could clearly see the loops and whorls of the labyrinthine streets that wound their way to the palace grounds and away again.

She liked this distant view better than the day-to-day close-up one, she thought. Maybe because it made more sense to see it than to live it.

Not quite resting her hand on the hot railing, she slowly walked the perimeter of the tower, studying the landscape below her as the view shifted. She liked the haphazard arrangement of city streets and neighborhoods, and the colorful border of the harbor. From here, she could barely see the ocean, just a smudge of blue against the long horizon. If she squinted, she thought she could make out white sails against the indigo of the water.

She would never be able to see far enough to catch a glimpse of Welce.

That thought had just crossed her mind when Steff yelped with alarm, and she whirled around to see what was wrong. And then, even in this hellishly hot place, she felt herself freeze with fear.

Alette had scrambled up from the wooden floor of the tower to the frail metal of the railing and stood poised upon it with her arms outstretched. She stared down at the city below, her dark face suddenly alive with emotion, twisted with anguish. Her balance was so delicate, her pose so impossible to hold, that even the whipping flames seemed like they could create enough wind to knock her over.